


Home on the Range

by scarletbegonias37



Category: The Boys in the Band (2020), The Boys in the Band - Crowley (Broadway 2018)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:14:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29357052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletbegonias37/pseuds/scarletbegonias37
Summary: Cowboy's point of view.
Relationships: Bud | Cowboy/Harold (Boys In The Band)
Kudos: 6





	Home on the Range

_Home, home on the range_

_Where the deer and the antelope play_

_Where seldom is heard a discouraging word_

_And the skies are not cloudy all day_

Billy was snoozing lightly on the couch -- which, while old and shabby and sagging a bit, was not uncomfortable at all -- an old tune playing in his head. The men were squabbling about whatever they were squabbling about again, so he thought this might be a good time to catch a wink or two. It had been a long night last night – business was booming now that the weather was getting warmer and the socialite Manhattan wives were starting to head out of town to the beach, the spa, to the country to visit their parents, or wherever it was that they went, when they went, and left their husbands behind on the island to play.

He’d made enough money in the last few days that he actually didn’t really _need_ to work tonight – he’d just stopped outside the theater to have a popsicle and see if anyone wanted to buy him a ticket for a show so he could sit inside the new-fangled air conditioning for a few hours; it was hot today, and the girls back at the crash pad he was staying at were fighting over who was going to wear which dress to the drag pageant tonight, so prospects for a quiet afternoon nap seemed unlikely. (At least, they referred to themselves as “girls” and “women” and “she” and “her”, even though they had been called boys at some time in the past and they still affected a deep voice on any of the extremely rare occasions he saw any of them talking to a parent on the phone, and some of them put on male dress when out in the “straight world” for various legal or social reasons. But nonetheless, if knowing themselves to be women was the way they felt about it, then Billy reckoned it was good enough for him, and he saw no reason to question it.)

Mother Mary (who’d named herself after the Beatles song) finally came out of her room last night and yelled at them all after a while, sending them to bed and saying she needed her beauty sleep, but it had still not been the most restful 24 hours.

But anyway, after he’d stopped for a few minutes, the little loud man had eyed him and chatted him up, and he definitely seemed entertaining, and $20 without having even bothered to hustle for it was an easy $20, so why not. He’d said “all night”, but Billy knew that was probably just bragging; how often did THAT happen (though he tripled his rate to $60, just in case, and took the first third as deposit, just as he’d been advised to do in his early days in the business when an offer like that came along). And, though these “couple who share a hooker” types always acted bold about it in the beginning, they usually really wanted you to leave as soon as possible after the deed was done so they could bond about it romantically without you being there. It should be an early night.

He could just pretend he hadn’t heard that part of the request later. He’d swing by around 9:00, give whoever this “Harold” was a great birthday – show a little affection – and then he’d head out to the bars, hopefully by midnight. A Saturday night in this weather was usually a tidy payday. And, if nothing else turned up, he’d see his friends, ask them how their work was going this week, and have a laugh, maybe.

When he first got to the address the man had given him and saw that there were seven men in the apartment – some of them rather large -- instead of just two, Billy thought for a moment that he was going to have to seriously renegotiate and set some new contractual limits (and perhaps call on a few friends to come help). But, it became clear within a matter of seconds that when the funny, loud, fast-talking Puerto Rican man had said a “party”, he had not meant him and his partner “Harold” (whoever that was) pretending that hiring a prostitute was a celebration, but an actual birthday party, with real presents and food and fancy alcohol and a cake, and that none of the other men had actually known he was coming.

Oh. He was a surprise gift for the birthday boy. With that in mind, the gift tag the man – Emory -- had asked him to wear was a lot funnier than he had originally thought.

Until Harold showed up, Billy thought he still might have to bail, run with the deposit and forego the rest of the payment. These men were in the middle of some kind of intense drama that he probably would have had to take hours to figure out. Some of them didn’t seem to know each other very well, or at all, while some spoke to each other like they were intimate, long-term friends. But Billy met a lot of people, and keeping track of every little nuance of other folks’ interpersonal relationships was not something he had the time or bandwidth for.

The one in the fancy suit with the bow tie – Billy forgot what that style of suit was called – turned out to apparently be “straight” and from out of town, which was too bad. Generally that type would have been a prime customer for him, had he been a local resident -- ready to spend all kinds of money both to have him and to keep him quiet. Oh well. Billy didn’t get a chance to see what he was all about anyway, before he and Emory got into a fight -- which was scary (Billy had his own experiences with violence, so he tended to freeze or run when fists started swinging) but fortunately over quickly.

Then Harold arrived and things started looking up. Emory put down his second deposit of the evening then, and Harold was a pretty good kisser, for one thing. And though indeed he had a rather unflattering tight ‘fro and bad skin, he had nice eyes and an attractive profile, and was tall and slim and young, at least by the standards of clients that didn’t even have the energy to go out and pick up their own hustler, in Billy’s experience. And he called Billy gorgeous and said anyone could fall in love with him, which was a nice ego boost. He was funny, though Billy didn’t entirely understand all of his jokes (Billy didn’t have a very good radar for sarcasm). His suit was very flashy, hip and new – Billy had seen it in the window at Bergdorf’s only a few months ago – which meant money, which meant potentially repeat business. He seemed picky, so pleasing him was probably going to be a challenge, but, evaluating him immediately like any good salesperson sizes up a customer who’s just walked into the store, Billy determined that it was definitely not going to be a chore.

The food was good. The man who seemed to own the apartment, Michael (though Billy wasn’t totally sure – the very handsome man named Donald seemed like he might live there too), made fun of him for not recognizing the dish, but Billy didn’t see why. It was clearly Italian food, but Billy didn’t know all that many Italian people, other than the ones in the Mafia who ran the gay bars and bribed the police (or, perhaps more accurately, traded money with their cousins who worked in the police department) not to bust them. Most of the young Italian hustlers worked the other boroughs or went down to D.C. or Philly to trick. It made sense to Billy, because if your uncles or cousins or guys from your old neighborhood were the ones shaking down the bars in this borough for protection, you probably didn’t want to be seen working in them.

He felt like that was too much to explain to all these seemingly privileged, well-off men who would probably have no idea what he was talking about, though, and it was best not to talk about the Mafia at all, so he just sat and ate his food. A warm, home-cooked meal and a comfortable place to eat it was nothing to sniff at, anyway.

Free pot, free booze, a full belly, and a dry warm spot out of the rain. Even with all the drama and yelling around him, Billy found it easy enough to take advantage of the moment and drift off. Not a bad evening, all told.

***

They undressed, but even before they’d gotten their clothes off, Billy knew nothing was going to happen, really. He’d met enough depressed men before to know that much.

The city was starting to wake up in the very early light – not that it ever slept – birds chirping, honking horns, bicycle bells – but Harold was quiet. He lay on the bed, rubbing the bridge of his nose, where there was still a mark from the heavy glasses he’d taken off a bit earlier. Billy just watched and waited. What did he want? Nothing? Another nap would be fine by him, but if anyone could use a little affection, it was Harold, and Billy didn’t mind.

“Would you…” Harold said hesitantly, at last, his eyes half-closed. “Would you kiss my face.” He said it flatly, not like a question, but he opened his eyes a bit wider then, and met Billy’s. Billy immediately understood what he meant.

He nodded, smiling, and stroked Harold’s temple gently. He kissed Harold’s cheeks, his forehead, his chin, his jaw, repeatedly – every scar. By the time he got to his neck, under Harold’s ear, he could feel that Harold was crying.

“My gramma always said scars are just a way of knowing you’ve lived,” Billy said softly, running the back of one hand over Harold’s face and down his arm, trying to gently massage his tense muscles without him taking too much notice. Harold’s scars really weren’t so bad at all, not at all. Billy had certainly seen, and dodged, far worse. “I’ve got a few myself. See?” He lifted one leg for a moment, to show the large, mottled, roughly textured one he had on his knee, where he’d fallen off their old tire swing in their backyard in Wisconsin into the gravel. And another smoother one he had under his chin, where he’d cut himself badly shaving for the first time. There were a few others he opted not to show him, but it seemed like Harold had gotten his meaning, anyway.

Harold pressed his lips together for a moment, closed his eyes tightly and opened them again, then choked out “your grandmother was a very wise woman”. A single tear rolled down his right cheek, seemingly involuntarily, and he discreetly rubbed his face against the pillow to wipe it off.

Billy kissed Harold’s forehead, where there was one particularly deep scar between his eyebrows, and gradually they drifted off again, in each other’s arms. No, scars weren’t so bad, really, especially ones that were only skin deep, and Billy had never minded them himself.


End file.
